Camille McEach­nie

Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Kelvin Charles says he is con­fi­dent To­bag­o­ni­ans and To­ba­go res­i­dents have the re­silience to face fu­ture chal­lenges.

This as is­landers and res­i­dents cel­e­brate To­ba­go Day to­day..

“The road ahead for this is­land as we forge a path of de­vel­op­ment and trans­for­ma­tion will be no less chal­leng­ing, as this coun­try ma­neu­vers to­wards sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment,” he said in his To­ba­go Day mes­sage.

He said the is­land has faced chal­lenges be­fore and have sur­mount­ed them.

“ I am proud of young Sharese Tay­lor, a past stu­dent of Bish­op’s High School, who is a na­tion­al schol­ar­ship win­ner for her ex­cel­lence in CAPE. We al­so have the top re­gion­al stu­dent in the per­form­ing arts, as Danique Ed­wards of Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary School placed first in the CAPE ex­am­i­na­tions,” Charles said.

He said is­landers rose to the chal­lenge and are now ac­cess­ing bet­ter train­ing to be­come en­tre­pre­neurs.

Charles said all those achieve­ments were pos­si­ble be­cause of is­landers’ “men­tal for­ti­tude and “at­ti­tude of grat­i­tude.”

He said it’s an at­ti­tude that has been hon­ored by the As­sem­bly and passed down for gen­er­a­tions.

He said the av­er­age To­bag­on­ian can learn from those who have done well and take up the chal­lenge by mak­ing use of ex­ist­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“Util­is­ing these op­por­tu­ni­ties and be­ing pro­duc­tive should be the way we show ap­pre­ci­a­tion (and) pass­ing on our knowl­edge, our time and our skills to our young peo­ple,” he said.

Quot­ing from the Bible, he said, “give thanks in all cir­cum­stances, which is God’s will for you.”

To­ba­go Day, for­mer­ly known as As­sem­bly Day, is cel­e­brat­ed on De­cem­ber 4 an­nu­al­ly. The cel­e­bra­tion takes many forms in­clud­ing a To­ba­go Day Awards.

The awards are giv­en to To­bag­o­ni­ans who have con­tributed con­sid­er­ably to the is­land’s de­vel­op­ment.